After the Dark

Chapter nine Meet the new boss

Just twenty yards from the west side of the house, Mole and Alec huddled in the woods. Between them and the mansion lay the building’s blue shadow, one last suggestion of night, even though ten minutes ago — on the other side of the massive, mausoleum-quiet building — the sun had broken through, bringing a not entirely welcome morning. And yet the chill of the night clung to them, as they squatted like oversize gnomes at the base of an oak.

“Where are they?” Mole asked, the reptilian face wrinkling with impatience. “What do you think? Should we go lookin’ for ’em?”

“We should do what Max said,” Alec said, “and wait.”

“Mr. Frickin’ Rule Book all of a sudden!”

Alec offered up his trademark smirk. “Is it my fault you ran out of smokes?”

Mole said nothing, just scowled.

Alec’s smirk softened into a smile. “Relax, buddy. They’ll be along.”

“They musta heard the shots.”

“Yeah — and we heard shots, too, remember? They maybe had a little trouble of their own.”

“They maybe got iced.”

“Maybe. But for now we wait.”

Mole sighed heavily and settled in. “All right... but it’d be easier if I had a damn cigar.”

“Life with you would be easier for me if you had a damn cigar... On the other hand, one look at the smoke and every goon and gun on the grounds’d be down on us.”

“Yeah yeah yeah. It’s a frickin’ moot point, ain’t it, smart-ass?”

A familiar female voice cut in: “Why don’t you two try marriage counseling?”

Mole swung around and there was Max, coming up a path between trees, an arm around Joshua’s waist, walking him along like he was drunk. To Alec, the smile on his friend’s furry face was even a little dumber than usual, as well as inappropriate, considering the circumstances.

“What’s up with Furballs?” Mole asked.

“He was shot,” she said.

“What? Jesus—” Mole said, getting to his feet.

“You mean he was stabbed,” Alec said, frowning, also getting up. “We all saw it, Max.”

Helping the beast man along, she said, “That was then... this is now — but he’ll be okay.”

Mole was helping her with Joshua, who they walked over to the base of a tree, sitting him down.

“Where’d he get it?” the lizard man asked.

“In the front cover,” she said, and quickly filled them in, finishing, “But he took the full impact of the slug — he’s pretty shaken.”

Joshua said, “Max kissed Joshua’s oowwie,” and grinned stupidly.

Alec and Mole exchanged lifted-eyebrow glances, then Alec said, “I don’t even want to know.”

Mole, amused, leaned toward Max, saying, “I got shot, too...” Then he puckered his lizard lips, as much as lizard lips could pucker, anyway.

And Max said, “You wish... Let’s see it.”

Mole showed her where the bullet had cut a crease in his vest and his side; the bleeding had stopped.

“Get over yourself!” she said. “I nick myself worse shavin’ my legs.”

Alec and Mole reflected on that image perhaps a beat too long, and Max snapped, “Can we get to business?”

Alec gestured through the trees. “I know about your cat-burglar background and all, Max — but how do you intend to get inside that dollhouse?”

The three-story antebellum mansion made, as before, an intimidating adversary, hedge in front, at least three windows on each floor on each side of the house...

“Windows,” Max said.

“What about them?” Alec asked.

“That’s our way in.”

The X5 frowned. “We’re not going to try to take out the alarm system? Those things’ll be as wired as Sketchy on Saturday night. Not very subtle, Max.”

“This from the guy who shot up the whole damned island on the way in.”

Alec looked hurt. “They started it — anyway, I heard way more gunfire from your side.”

She arched an eyebrow, a fist on a hip. “What, are you afraid alarms will alert them to our presence?”

Alec smirked humorlessly. “Well, maybe the gunshots already did that, yeah.”

Mole cleared his throat.

They both turned to look at him.

“Anybody got a cigar?” he asked.

“No,” Max said.

“Of course not,” Alec said.

“No,” Joshua said, and suddenly the Big Fella was standing next to them.

Mole made a mock-gracious “after you” gesture, half bowing. “Then can we just do this shit, please? So I can find my way back to civilization and some frickin’ tobacco?”

They each came in from a different direction, breaking through a first-floor window — gloved hands punching a hole and reaching up to undo the latch — and rolling in, into a combat stance. No audible alarms were triggered, though silent ones would no doubt be registering in some security center.

Max had assigned Joshua — seeing as how he’d been both stabbed and shot recently — to go in on the west side; the window Max selected for him was toward the back, probably a study or den. Alec went around to the east side and came in through a dining room window. In the back, Mole barged into the kitchen, while in the front, Max rolled right into the living room. If you’re gonna crash a party, Max thought, might as well really crash it...

Two guards waited for her, and when she came up, one hit her high in front while the other hit her low in back. She dropped, hit the floor hard, feeling like a gong somebody had sounded, and wondered for a moment if Alec might not have been right about being a little more circumspect in their entrance.

They were big and well-built, both with short, dark hair, and they wore black TAC fatigues. One was a few inches taller than his partner and had a short, crooked scar on his right cheek. But they were not smart: they should have immediately attacked a second time instead of waiting there, poised as if some invisible referee were counting Max out.

And of course Max wasn’t about to be counted out...

Bouncing to her feet, she hit the nearest one, the scarred sucker, with a straight, powerful right, a punch that could have put a hole in a wall...

... and he didn’t flinch.

Goddamn Familiars, she thought.

The other one kicked her in the back, but she was braced for a blow and took it well, only when she moved forward the scarred one karate-edged her in the stomach and doubled her over.

And unlike a Familiar, an X5 like Max — for all her superior attributes — could feel pain, all right...

Like an overeager dance partner, the scarred boy spun her around, jitterbug style, one hand on the scruff of her neck, the other on her backside, and ran her at the open window. With no more effort than it would take him to toss his jacket on a chair, the big man threw her through the window, over the hedge and into the yard, where she hit with a thud, rolled a couple of times, and stopped in a sprawl.

Standing in the window, the two Familiars grinned at her. Max got up, dusted herself off, and with a toss of the head, flung the hair from her eyes.

“Fellas — I been thrown outta better places, by better people.”

Like an ugly family portrait in the frame of the broken window, the two guards just kept grinning at her. The scarred Familiar said, “You’re always welcome here.”

And he gestured with a little “com’ere” curl of the fingers.

Max smiled. “I think I will make another visit. Only this time, just for a change of pace — I’ll kick your asses.”

“Go,” the scar-faced one said, and the rest of the phrase presumably would have been “for it,” only Max didn’t let him get that out. Instead, she launched herself back through the window, taking both men down with her in a wide generous embrace.

Max rolled off them, leaving the two startled men on their backs; then she landed nimbly on her feet and pirouetted, facing them, a woman possessed. They scrambled up even as her fists and feet flew in all directions, and — despite their incredibly high pain threshold — the Familiars could not withstand the one-woman onslaught. Though there were two of them, the guards were no match for this whirling dervish of a pissed-off X5.

The vast living room — the meager furnishings that remained sheet-covered and pressed up against the walls, like mute spectators — gave the three combatants plenty of space to maneuver on the hardwood floor.

The scarred one went down first, a vicious kick catching him on the side of the knee, tearing ligaments audibly. He didn’t cry out, of course, but any lack of pain couldn’t make up for the physical facts of life, and the leg gave out underneath him when he tried to attack her. He made one more sweeping attempt with his good leg, which she jumped as if skipping rope, and the aftermath of the guard’s attempt was to present his chin at a nice angle; and Max clipped him with a straight, swift, hard right that turned out his lights.

The other one cartwheeled toward her, delivered a fast one-two and cartwheeled away.

“That looked pretty,” she said. “Blow me another kiss, why don’t you?”

And she waved for him to bring the shit again, and he did, this time cartwheeling in and kicking her first with his right, then his left foot, before cartwheeling away — she’d pulled back some, but he did catch her. She raised her gloved hand to her face, wiped a trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth, and waved for him to come back one more time.

This time he backflipped into a cartwheel, apparently hoping to confuse her, but Max was ready, and when he was braced for that split second on just one hand, she hit the floor in a baseball slide, knocked the guard’s palm out from under him and dumped him on his head.

He jumped to his feet, only to find Max cartwheeling this time, right toward him; then she dropped into a roll and launched at him, her fist burying to the wrist in his crotch. He said nothing, his eyes bulging and watering as he bent over, obviously surprised by the intensity of the sensation.

“See?” Max said, with a demented little grin. “Some kindsa pain you just can’t completely breed out of a guy...”

And she came up, delivering a hard head butt that broke the guard’s nose, twin streams of blood erupting from either nostril as he went pitching back into the wall.

He bounced back at her, consumed with rage, blood and spittle flying as he roared toward her. At a fraction of the last moment, she sidestepped and the guard blasted through the middle unopened window, breaking glass raining all around as he came to rest over the sill, half in the room, half outside. It was as if he were taking a breather.

Then he stood, turned, blood dripping from several cuts as he stepped through the shattered glass. Coughing, he frowned and reached up and felt a huge shard protruding from his neck. He coughed again as if that might dislodge the scratching in his throat.

“Got a tickle?” Max asked. “Let me help.”

She stepped forward, yanked the glass from the man’s neck, and ducked, anticipating the arterial spray, which easily rose to the ceiling, where it painted a scarlet Jackson Pollock abstraction.

The Familiar’s eyes went wide and his hands flew to his throat, but it was too late. Max drop-kicked him, sending him on through the window this time, to leave him outside to bleed to death. She knew it wouldn’t take long.

Say what you will about Manticore, she thought, but science’ll beat out pagan breeding rituals, any time.

She left the living room — and the drip-drip-drip of her opponent’s blood off the ceiling — and went into the hall.

Joshua was emerging from the back of the house, in the midst of fighting another guard — obviously a Familiar (any human would be crushed by any one of Joshua’s formidable blows) — backing the man slowly down the hall toward Max with a series of punches alternating between face and belly. The guard was putting up a good fight even though Joshua towered over him. Slowly, the battle neared her.

“Don’t be cruel to animals,” she said.

The guard turned, and she delivered a right cross that spun the man back toward Joshua, who caught him with a left hook. The Familiar’s eyes closed and the guard melted to the floor.

“Hard to hurt them,” Joshua said.

“They’re like robots,” Max said. “But when you shut off their electricity, they go down.”

Joshua nodded, getting the concept.

“Check on Mole,” she said. “I’ll look for Alec.”

They each took off in the direction from which they’d come, Joshua toward the back to find Mole in the kitchen, Max to the front to look for Alec, moving away from the living room. She ran into him at the bottom of the staircase, just as four Familiars opened fire with automatic weapons from above.

Both Max and Alec dove into the dining room, but they knew this sanctuary would last barely ten seconds. Already they could hear the guards thundering down the stairs. The room had a long table covered with two sheets and a dozen sheeted chairs, as if a banquet for ghosts was in sway. At the other end of the room, sharing the same wall as the door they’d used, another door led, presumably, to the kitchen.

Communicating with hand signals, they put a plan together — no time to decide whether it sucked or not, and anyway, it was a collaboration — then the X5s set it into action.

Alec took off for the back, while Max flattened herself against the wall, next to the near door.

When the first guard came in, Max jerked his gun out of his hand, and pulled him to her. As she did, a second guard fired at them, killing the guard Max held in front of her, a human shield.

Alec — having slipped out the door at the back of the dining room — came up the hall from the kitchen, Mole on one side of him and Joshua on the other, and the three of them waded into the remaining guards, just as Max discarded her dead shield and attacked the nearest opponent, using the butt of the commandeered weapon as a club, knocking him unconscious and to the floor in a pile.

Within seconds all the three guards were down, likely out for the rest of the day, if not dead. None of the three transgenics gave that a thought, not even the compassionate Joshua — these four were soldiers, bred by Manticore for combat, and soldiers did not linger over the casualties they’d created, shedding tears.

“You all right?” Alec asked Max.

“I feel good... You two?”

Mole said, “This is fun. If I had a frickin’ smoke, my life would be a song.”

Joshua said, “I’m alive, too, Little Fella.”

“Stay that way, Big Fella,” she said. “Let’s get upstairs then — I’ll take the point... Mole, you ride drag.”

Nodding, they fell into line and paraded up the stairs, their eyes everywhere — another wave of guards, coming up behind them, would be a bad thing...

There were six bedrooms on the second floor and, Max supposed, probably an equal number on the third floor, though she had never been up there. Using hand signals, she sent Mole and Alec on upstairs, while she and Joshua checked the rooms on this floor, starting at the end farthest from Lyman Cale’s bedroom.

They found nothing — no further guards, no guests, no Franklin Bostock — and had just arrived outside Lyman’s door when the other two came down from the third floor and signaled that they had struck out up there as well.

They fanned out, Max in the lead again, Alec and Joshua on either side behind her, Mole off to one side, watching their backs.

Max opened the door. Stepped in.

Lyman Cale still lay in the bed; if possible, he seemed even smaller, as if he’d shrunk further, a withered rind lost in a white nightshirt, cables coming in and out of him, keeping Logan’s uncle alive, technically at least — as the surrounding monitors and gizmos attested.

Franklin Bostock — again in a black blazer, white shirt with no tie, and gray slacks — stood on the far side of the bed near Cale’s head. He appeared calm, and their entry into the room seemed to barely register on him.

Alec and Joshua came in and spread out again behind Max.

“Thought you’d be back, Ms. Guevera,” Bostock said, his voice detached, even cold.

But Max’s voice was frigid. “Ray White.”

Bostock looked up at her, unimpressed. “What of him?”

“He was an eleven-year old boy.”

Bostock shrugged. “You know what they say about omelets.”

“Is that what the boy is to you? Was to you? A bro-

ken egg?”

“You’re a soldier, Ms. Guevera. All wars have their casualties. I imagine you’ve cut quite a swath through my men, coming this far.”

“Wars? Casualties?” She took a menacing step forward. “Those things I know about... I also know about atrocities. Why? Why an innocent child?”

She took another step, and a small caliber pistol revealed itself in Bostock’s hand.

And it was pointed at the head of Lyman Cale, not that that comatose figure had any realization of it.

“Take another step,” he said, “and there will be another casualty in this war.” A smile spread, like a terrible rash, across his bland face. “You might make it before I blow Lyman’s brains — what’s left of them — all over this pillow. But I doubt it.”

She just stood there.

Bostock’s eyes met hers. “You’re still considering it, though, aren’t you? Go ahead. Make your move — you may find me a more formidable adversary than you might imagine... And then you can explain to Logan Cale how you got his uncle killed.”

The thought of what had happened to Seth because of Logan flitted across her mind, and in that moment what this sadistic son of a bitch had just said triggered an epiphany in Max.

Logan wouldn’t have intentionally put Seth in danger — not any more than Logan would have done with her, when she accepted missions. It was always her choice, and it would have been the same for her sib. And the truth was, Seth liked taking risks even more than Alec or Zack.

Max understood why Logan had lied now. That is, she understood his act of omission, not commission...

If this situation went sideways, as it very well might at any moment, there would be no way in hell she could ever explain to Logan, no way she could bear to tell him, if she were to cause him to lose his uncle, the last relative of his on the planet who had ever seemed to care about him...

Bostock’s voice grew sharp. “Your two playmates — on their knees. Hands behind their necks.”

She could feel Alec and Joshua looking at her, and she turned to them, nodded once, and they complied, dropping as if in prayer, elbows winged as hands locked behind heads.

“You seem to think you’re going somewhere,” Max said.

Bostock nodded. “Out of here, for a start.”

“How exactly?” Max crossed her arms. “You really think we’re just going to let you through? Or are you gonna haul ol’ Lyman out of bed and yank those tubes out of him and use him as a hostage? I’d pay to see that.”

Bostock turned a bit and trained the pistol on Max. “Ms. Guevera... you’re my hostage. And I think you’ll comply — after all, accompanying me will be your only chance, however faint, of rescuing Logan Cale.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I’ll be taking you to where he’s being held.”

Max froze. “Then... you knew White’s plan all along! You were part of it.”

Bostock said, “Familiars do get... familiar. We share many things with each other — it’s a brotherhood, after all.”

“Yeah, like Cain and Abel.” She shook her head. “If you knew what White was up to — that he planned to use me to get Ray back — why did you interfere with it? Why kill that boy?”

The man’s eyes flared. “What, and allow Ames White to consolidate his power with the Conclave? I don’t think so.”

Her head was spinning. “How could a kid like that consolidate White’s power?”

Bostock sighed, as if he were dealing with a child. “Ames White had hopes and dreams for his son — and there is a small but powerful faction among the Conclave who took the youngster’s potential seriously. Others of us considered that boy weak — his mother an ordinary who betrayed us, his father a failure, the whole family nothing but a negative influence to our goals... Let’s just say I removed a small problem.”

She let out a bitter laugh. “So, for all your posing... you and this Conclave are really no better than the ordinaries, are you?”

Bostock looked baffled, and offended.

“Petty jealousy,” she said. “Nothing more than petty jealousy cost that boy his life.”

“Petty?” The word seemed to explode out of Bostock. Suddenly the calm bureaucrat was a seething demon. “It was White’s family that burdened the Conclave with you transgenics in the first place! White’s father — this Sandeman, you consider him your father don’t you, all of you? — Sandeman lost his nerve, and now we have you mutated rabble to deal with. That family must be made to pay!”

Max frowned. “What is the Conclave’s obsession with Sandeman and the transgenics?... What possible threat could we be to you and your twisted goals?”

In an instant, Bostock was the calm bureaucrat again. “You don’t know?” He seemed amused — quietly so. “You really don’t know?”

Max’s hands went to her hips. “What don’t I know?”

Bostock’s upper lip curled, and his words dripped venomous contempt: “Anything. You... don’t... know... anything.”

“I’m crushed, Franklin,” she said. “And here I thought you held me in such high regard.”

The gun still trained on her, he shook his head. “You have no idea how important you are...”

“Now I’m important?”

“... and you’ve just delivered yourself to me all tied up in a Christmas ribbon. But you are dangerous. Perhaps too dangerous to serve as a hostage...”

He pointed the gun at Max’s head now, eyes tightening.

Alec and Joshua both started to rise, but Max patted the air, telling them to keep their position.

“If I’m so valuable, so important,” she said, easing a half a step toward him, “why kill me?”

“Your death is inevitable — it’s just a question of where and when... though it must be soon.”

“I need to die... soon.”

“Yes. You see, killing you represents victory, Max. May I call you ‘Max’? ‘Ms. Guevera’ is too formal for us now, don’t you think?... Your death means we win.”

“You know, I always knew you snake-cult kids were a wacky bunch.” She edged another few inches. “But maybe you can explain why the death of a mutant like me could be so important to a movement that dates back thousands and thousands of years...”

His laugh had a hint of hysteria in it. “You’ve really never figured it out?... And Sandeman never told you?”

“Never met the guy. He was kind of a deadbeat dad, ya get right down to it.” With each exchange now, she was narrowing the distance between them.

“A pity,” Bostock said. “He might’ve had some fatherly advice for you. He might have told you to be more careful.”

She squinted at him. “Am I in the same conversation? ’Cause I am definitely not following you, Franklin.”

His arm straightened, the gun aimed squarely at her forehead. “You’re going to die, that’s a given... but considering all the grief you’ve given us, perhaps you do deserve to know just how badly you failed.”

She moved another half step.

“That’s far enough,” he said, punctuating the sentence with a gesture of the pistol.

She halted. “How did I fail?”

He smiled, almost fondly. “Max, Max... you were the one... the one!”

“The... one.”

“The chosen one, the new messiah!”

“Me. I’m Jesus.”

“Yes. And how sad to die so close to one’s birthday.”

The guy was raving; even for a snake-cult practitioner, Bostock was ’round the bend. Max wasn’t sure how much longer she could stall...

“Then maybe after you kill me,” she said, “I’ll be back in seven days...”

“I don’t think so. This is a Christmas tale, Max... not Easter. So here’s a gift: your ‘father,’ White’s real father, the fabled Sandeman, he got Manticore pulled out from under him by a clandestine organization inside the government.”

“That much I know.”

Bostock went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “But before he left, before Colonel Lydecker and the others took over, he made one special child. You, Max.”

“Well. Maybe my daddy did love me.”

“In his way I’m sure he did. He did something very special for you, Max — he spared you any junk DNA... You’re the only person — ordinary or transgenic or even Familiar — on this entire planet who is like that. Even all the other Manticore freaks, like pretty boy here, and Jo Jo the dog-face boy... they have some flawed DNA. But not yours.”

“And this makes me the Messiah how?”

Bostock frowned at her, as if he was dealing with an imbecile. “You still don’t see the bigger picture? A pity Sandeman didn’t put a few more grains of IQ into that test tube.”

She just looked at him. With a Christmas fruitcake like this, what was there to say?

Bostock, his voice hushed, asked, “Do you know about the Coming?”

Oh boy.

“... The Coming?” she said. “Y’know, considering I’m the Messiah and all, you’d think I would... but why don’t you fill me in.”

Bostock’s eyes showed white all around. “The Coming is the end for most... but the beginning for our people. Thousands of years of breeding have gone into preparing us for survival from the Coming.”

“You still haven’t told me what the Coming is.”

He raised his chin and the eyes had a wild cast. “When the comet comes, it will signify the end of the old... and the beginning of a brand new world.”

Ames White’s words echoed in her mind: I want Ray to wake up Christmas morning in a brand new world.

“This comet,” Max said, “when...”

Bostock gestured to the ceiling... the sky... with his free hand. “It’s visible once every 2021 years — that means this year. The last time was—”

Abruptly, Alec entered the conversation: “The Christmas star of Bethlehem...”

Bostock bowed, just a little. “Very good, young man.”

Max swallowed. “And, uh... how exactly do I become the new messiah, out of a comet passing over the planet... two thousand years after the last messiah was born?”

He held the pistol steady on her, his gaze as steady as it was crazed. “Hard for me to believe you’ve had no signs... that Sandeman didn’t find a way to tell you.”

The markings!

Over the last year, runes that had started popping up on her flesh — new, instant tattoos unwantedly decorating her body, markings Logan had tried to translate, with no luck.

Bostock was wrong — Sandeman had found a way to let her know! She just hadn’t figured it out, till this moment...

“With the coming of the comet,” Bostock was saying, in a hushed voice worthy of church, “there will be a release of a biotoxin. It will wipe out the ordinaries — all those too weak to fight, too weak to be part of the new, pure order.”

No need to stall him, she thought. Bostock was a zealot — he loved the sound of his own voice expressing the “sacred” beliefs of his cult.

“Only luck has prevented the catastrophe from repeating itself,” he went on, using the bully pulpit that was the gun in his hand. “The comet is on an elliptical orbit that has brought it close enough for the biotoxin to reach Earth only once before — what do you think wiped out the dinosaurs? That time around, the ice age destroyed the toxin.”

Max asked, “And this time around?”

“Christmas Eve — midnight, when the twenty-fourth becomes the twenty-fifth... that will be the next time the comet passes this close to the planet.”

Alec said, “Close enough to drop off the biotoxin.”

“Yes,” Bostock said. “Death to the dinosaurs that walk the earth today — the ordinaries. The weak. Life to the Familiars. The strong.”

Alec asked, “Which makes Max the Messiah how?”

“She is the only person on Earth completely immune to the virus.”

Max said, “Because of Sandeman.”

“Yes,” Bostock said. “Even those of us with our special breeding face a small risk, as do the transgenics, but all of us — Familiars and test-tube mutants alike — should emerge unscathed. You, on the other hand, Max — there’s no ‘should’ about it.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Because I’m the ‘Messiah’?”

“Because your unique DNA assures you that you will suffer no side-effects, no illness. Sandeman found a way to defeat the toxin, using frozen samples recovered from the polar ice cap. Your blood offers the ordinaries the same sort of vaccine potential that we have obtained through thousands of years of selective breeding.”

“My blood,” she said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry or do Daffy Ducks around the room, “could save the world?”

Bostock nodded, as if what she’d said was eminently reasonable. “Those ordinaries who don’t die immediately upon exposure to the biotoxin might overcome it, given a vaccine developed from your blood. But when I kill you, Max, that possibility evaporates — the dream ends for humanity, and ours succeeds.”

She held her palms out. “Sure you don’t wanna drag me back to Snake Cult Central, and be the big man, for bagging lady Jesus?”

“It’s tempting,” he said with a tiny smile. “But you’re a gifted young woman... and making the journey with you might be too great a risk.”

Bostock’s finger was poised on the trigger, and starting to squeeze.

Behind the Familiar, a window shattered...

... and Mole flew through, rolling once and popping up next to the stunned secretary; the pistol Mole had lifted from the Gulliver house was now scant inches from Bostock’s skull, minus the silencer. They all stood frozen for a second, then Bostock, realizing the futility of his position, dropped his gun.

“What the hell took you so long?” Max asked Mole. “If this crazy son of a bitch wasn’t so chatty, I might be dead by now!”

Mole had a big fat half-smoked cigar in his teeth, which had survived the trip through the window. He said, “I was listenin’ on the ledge — entertaining BS, too. Anyway, you were about to jump his shit, weren’t ya?”

That was true, but Max said, “Where the hell did you get the cigar?”

Mole shrugged. “Found a box of Havanas in Snake Boy’s office downstairs.”

“You took time to look for cigars?”

“Chill, Miz Messiah — Popeye needs his spinach, Mole needs his smokes.”

If the lizard man hadn’t just saved their skins, she might have been tempted to whale on him.

Puffing happily on his Havana, Mole jabbed the pistol into Bostock’s ribs and said, “Sounds like Nixon here knows where Logan is.”

Bostock stood silently, sullenly. He didn’t seem particularly afraid, which bothered Max.

Mole got right on that, raising the pistol from the man’s ribs to six inches from his left eye, thumbing the hammer back.

The tip of his stogie waggling an inch from his captive’s cheek, Mole said, “Your problem, Bosty ol’ boy, is it’s Max here who thinks the sun rises and sets on Logan Cale. To me, he’s just another annoying ordinary, which I’m sure you can identify with.”

Sweat began to pearl Bostock’s upper lip.

Mole went on: “Of course, I ain’t crazy about you, either — though I do appreciate the Havanas. Even so, I’d just as soon pop one in your eye as not. So, asshole — you ready to die for the Conclave?”

Joshua finally entered the conversation, growling, “Take one for the team.”

Bostock remained stoic.

Mole turned an eye toward Max.

“Screw it,” she said. “When White calls next, we’ll tell him everything and gamble he’ll play ball.”

Bostock said, “White will never—”

Max said to Mole, “Shoot him.”

The secretary’s eyes widened and his hands shot up, palms outstretched in front of him, pushing the air in a “be reasonable” fashion.

“Wait!” Bostock blurted. “Wait — I do know where Logan is... I can show you the way.”

Mole eased the gun back a few inches.

Max came over to the pair then, her face less than a foot from Bostock’s. “Selective breeding, and you’re what they came up with?” She got out her cell phone, punched some buttons.

The voice in her ear was reassuringly sassy: “Original Cindy. Whatchu want?”

“It’s me, Cin.”

And Max outlined the situation for her friend.

“So,” O.C. said, the sounds of Jam Pony in the background, “all I gotta do is rent a boat, drive it out to some godforsaken island in the middle of nowhere and babysit some old coot who’s a vegetable?”

“That’s all, Boo.”

“No problem. But you gonna owe me, girl.”

“As usual. And I need you to hook up with somebody else.”

She gave Cindy the number of Sam Carr. Max was confident that once again Logan’s doctor would make a house call.

“And tell Sam to bring Bling and/or other support. Couple guys who can handle themselves and are Eyes Only friendly.”

“Hostile territory?”

“Yes — secured hostile territory, but hostile.”

They searched the mansion one more time, making sure all of the security force was out of action; the survivors were rounded up and locked away in the basement. Then the little commando squad took a few minutes to grab some food — for now and later — in the Cale mansion kitchen.

But they couldn’t afford to wait around for their friends to arrive and take charge of Lyman Cale. Max was confident Original Cindy could handle the situation, and the X5 would check in with O.C. and Sam Carr by cell phone.

They took the boat back, got the car, and — following directions supplied by a suspiciously cooperative Bostock — hit the road.

“How do we know this button-down bastard ain’t leadin’ us on a wild goose chase?” Mole asked Max as he guided Logan’s wheels down a back country road.

Hands and feet bound by duct tape, Bostock chuckled in the backseat, jammed between Joshua and Alec, who had the pistol pressed into the private secretary’s ribs.

“You’re easily amused,” Max said to their prisoner.

Shaking his head, Bostock said, “I’m not leading you on a ‘wild goose chase.’ Not at all — I’m taking you right where you want to go.”

“Yeah,” Max smirked. “You’re a great guy, Bostock. Class act.”

He grunted a laugh. “You think you’ve won. You’re only making my own inevitable victory that much easier. By hand-delivering you to the Conclave alive, I will not only shame White and his family, I... I... will become the chosen one. Ames White’s defeat will be complete, as will my ascension.”

“Sorry, Franklin,” Max said, “but there’s only room for one messiah in this car, and according to you, I’m it.”

Everybody but Bostock laughed. Even Joshua got the joke.

“When we crucify you,” Bostock said nastily, “you won’t be coming back.”

“Pretty cocky,” Max said, “for a man on his way to see the father of the child he had murdered... Boy’s body is in the trunk, by the way.”

Bostock’s smug facade faltered, but only for a moment. “White must be even softer than I thought if he lost to the likes of you.”

Alec jammed the gun in the man’s side. “Yeah,” Alec said. “Takes a real schmuck to let transies like us get the better of him.”

Her cell phone chirped. “Go for Max.”

“It’s Sam, Max. I’m with Lyman Cale.”

“Can you do anything for him, Doc?”

“I’m arranging to have him taken out of here by private medivac — but I don’t hold out much hope. The man has been nearly starved to death.”

“These the medivac people Logan has used?”

“Strictly Eyes Only ops. Bling’s with me now. We need to not hang around here, you know — you left some... trash.”

The mansion and the grounds were littered with dead security guards. And of course a few live ones were salted away in the basement, and might get frisky, over time...

“You’re right, Sam. Get out of there, ASAP. Get Logan’s uncle some help, and you and Cindy to safety.”

“Got it. Good luck. Stay safe.”

“You, too, Sam. ’Bye.”

She broke the connection.

“Dr. Carr?” Alec asked.

“Yeah. If Mr. Cale lives to see the New Year, it’ll be a miracle.” She turned to Bostock in the backseat, her voice icy. “By the way, if White doesn’t kill you, I’m going to.” Their eyes met for a long moment, and he kept his face impassive and proud; then she turned back — and heard a little gulp behind her.

They drove for hours and, as midnight passed and the temperature turned cold, Max wondered what exactly she and her friends could do to stop a comet that was supposed to wipe out mankind come Christmas.

The weirdest part was that she cared. Most of the ordinaries had shared nothing but revulsion and fear with her and her kind. If she was their damn messiah — and she’d had a sort of virgin birth, hadn’t she? — she couldn’t say she was wild about the idea of dying for their sins.

“That’s it!” Bostock said from the backseat. “Just up ahead!”

Mole slowed.

At the mouth of a blacktop lane that cut through dense trees was a large white sign that said in bold black letters:

“Somebody doesn’t have the Christmas spirit,” Mole growled.

“That’s the only way in,” Bostock said, an excited edge in his voice.

“And out,” Max said. She turned and looked at their captive, pointedly. “You’d just love us to go driving down there — a gate? A guard?”

Bostock was smiling. “Don’t worry — when they find out it’s you, the welcome will be warm.”

Max’s eyes went to Mole, who was shifting his latest stogie from one corner of his mouth to another.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “Keep driving.”

Mole kept driving.

Both he and Max had a good sense of direction, a Manticore-tuned grasp of geography, and after a while she nodded to the lizard-man chauffeur to turn right onto a dirt road, which was little more than a path. It wasn’t wide and didn’t look like it had been traveled on for a good long time.

Still, something about the road had set off Max’s radar, and she pointed to a grove of trees off to the left. “Pull in over there and park it. Kill the lights.”

Mole eased the car off the road, onto the grass, and let it glide under the cover of the trees.

They all got out, Alec still holding the gun on Bostock, the bound secretary hopping along awkwardly.

“You’re wasting your time,” Bostock said.

“Gag him,” Max ordered.

Joshua held Bostock while Alec went back to the car; soon Alec returned to give Bostock half a smile before jamming a rag in his mouth and circling his head with duct tape.

“I’m going up ahead to have a look,” Max said. “Hang here — if I’m not back in half an hour, bail.”

“I’ll just tag along,” Mole said.

“No. Stay with the group.”

Joshua raised his hand like a school kid wanting to be excused, and said, “Me, then.”

She shook her head. “It’s just a recon — better off alone. I’ll be back soon.”

Before they could put up any more fuss, she took off.

She traveled less than a mile through the silent, dark woods, the evening chill making the temperature crisp again. The trees were close together, the grass not too tall, and above her, small meteors streaked across the sky, giving her a sense of foreboding.

She’d read in that rag Sketchy wrote for about the end-of-the-world comet, but hadn’t taken it any more seriously than the vampire bat boy story or “Bigfoot Had my Baby.”

But the comet was coming...

Still in the woods, she reached the top of a short hill and peeked around a tree to see what lay beyond.

Down the other side, past another patch of trees — alone in the middle of a wide, well-trimmed, sparse landscape — sat a three-story white stucco building and two outbuildings. Even from this distance she could see that bars covered the windows, and something C. J. Sandeman, the nutty brother of Ames White and evidently her half brother, had told her — when was it, a year ago? — came back to her.

“I’m not going back to their loony bin,” C.J. had said.

From here the building indeed looked exactly like a no frills mental hospital. Below her, she knew, sat the stronghold of the Conclave.

Logan was in there somewhere — White, too; and God only knew how many Familiars, and what horrors...

But they had to go in. If they were walking into a trap, so be it; at least she’d be near Logan one last time.

The people in that bare-looking building — whether directly or indirectly — had been screwing with her since before she was born. It was too close to sunup to do anything now; they would sit tight during the day, and then tomorrow night it would be time to take the asylum away from those madmen.